AOD Swap help

First remove the nut on the end of the shaft. They you have to pull out a roll pin that I've circled below:

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The roll pin sits in a groove on the shaft preventing it from moving side to side. I've found the best way to get it out is to clamp some vice grips onto it and just pull it out. But be careful, don't bugger up the end or it will be a lot harder to get out...

It depends on what kind of linkage you're going to use to move the lever. I have a cable operated floorshift in mine and I have the lever pointing down. My cable runs rearward from the shifter, through a hole in the floor under the drivers seat and then up to the lever. You could use the lever pointing up, but your cable would have to attach towards the front of the car. I hope this makes sense, I don't feel like I'm explaining it very well.

You just have to think about how it will work and figure it out.

Looking at the trans from the drivers side, park gear should be rotated all the clockwise.

BTW...its not a kickdown lever, its a throttle valve lever. It controls the internal lubrication of the transmission, so make sure its adjusted properly. The mounting point shouldn't matter too much, but make sure it is moving properly with your throttle, or you'll have a dead trans in short order.

When I did mine I dropped the motor/trans in together without the crossmember. I set it down on the motor mounts, then I put a floor jack under the trans and bolted in the crossmember. Afterwards I installed the headers. I had to jack up the motor a few inches to get the headers in, was a little tricky but not too bad.

I think its possible to mate the engine trans with the engine bolted down. I just dropped both in at the same time because I already had both of them out of the car.

You could try threading some short pieces of all thread into the block to use as guides while you line the trans up. Other than that, I'm fresh out of ideas. I've never installed a trans from the bottom.

I've always found it much easier to install an automatic trans with the motor at the same time. For mine I found out after a while of fighting it that it was easiest to put the headers in the engine compartment and use some wire to hold them in the general area and out of the way. Then drop in the engine and tranny, after the crossmember and engine mounts were secure I bolted up the headers. Loosening the header bolts at the head never worked for me. I have Hooker Comps (with added bungs for oxygen sensors).

You can hook the tranny up with the engine in the car, but in my situation the short cut was to pull the motor, it was definitely not the long way, especially after fighting the headers.

Here are the main bolts you'll be dealing with when installing it (linkages will be installed on both so they are omitted from this):

option 1. engine in car, with headers installing aod from bottom:
4 nuts for torque converter (only 1 can be installed at a time, this can be a pain)
6 bolts for belhousing to engine (a few are a real pain with an AOD)
2 bolts for crossmember to body
Shifting around a heavy trans on a jack and fighting headers all while on your back

option 2. pull engine and install engine and tranny together
4 bolts to remove/install radiator
2 bolts for crossmember to tranny
2 bolts for crossmember to body
2 bolts (1 for each motor mount)
Shifting around a heavy engine and trans from above with an engine hoist and only installing 6 bolts while working on your back. Mock up the headers while the engine is out find any clearance issues (this step can really save some frustration). I can't recall for sure but I believe I had to grind an ear off the tranny for clearance reasons also. I don't remember which side or where the ear was located though.


You may or may not have to remove some accessories to pull the engine.

Do what redhotcomet said and line up the motor mounts first then the crossmember is pretty easy. If you wire the headers to the sides of the engine compartment you probably wont have to jack up the engine again.

You don't have to pull the motor, I'd say pull the headers though, you'll want the room for connecting the block to the tranny too.

I put the tanny in first, located the tailshaft onto the tranny mount with the bolts all the way through and the nuts on just enough to be secure (tons of room for wiggling). Then i dropped the motor in, and rested it on the engine mounts (left the crane attached for safety) and got the dowels into the block for correct position as well as the TC. Then I got all of the tranny bolts started into the block before I secured the engine mounts.

So basically at one point all of the bolts were in but loose, that wiggle room made it much easier, then I began tighteneing them all a little at a time and did not torque any of them down until they were all "finger tight". Only after all that did I even think about putting the headers on.
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Now, back to the transmission discussion...You have a floor shifter (duh, it's a Mustang right) and you are going to leave the linkage-input the way you have it? It is easy to tell the shift pattern if you can turn it...P-R-N-D-2-1 cannot be "gotten backwards", so if you ca turn the driveshaft or yoke you can easily determine the correct way.

I believe the way you have it now is correct, you described it as

"there is not a fast, total spring back of the throttle"

this is correct and my AOD worked fine like this for several years before I switched to EFI.

On mine the spring is bunched up slightly, but does not effect the way it works.

Sorry if I made it more confusing but if you move the bracket and have more cable showing it defeats the purpose of the spring. Lokar describes on my setup where to install the bracket and it has worked fine for me. The only other thing you might try is cutting some of the coils off the spring